Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels that generate electrical power from the sun's energy are known. In commercial and residential environments, these panels are mounted on a support made usually of iron or extruded aluminum, and are typically arranged over the roof of a building, such as an office building, shopping mall or residential structure, and either attached directly to the roof or are ballasted or weighed down to the roof using concrete block. Many present solar panel arrays are formed by several support structure elements that are brought to the roof in pieces, and then constructed and assembled on the roof. These structures are then physically and permanently or semi-permanently fastened to one another and placed on the rooftop as permanent fixtures designed to be on the roof for a long period of time. Since rooftops generally are not always flat, and may have a variable or undulating surface, it is difficult to uniformly and evenly seat such permanent or semi permanent support structures on an undulating or variable surfaced roof.
For the most part, current solar panel systems are typically assembled on-site. The assembly on-site includes the mounting structure itself, attaching the solar panel to the mounting structure, installing the wiring for the solar panels, and connecting the entire system together. A solar installation also requires a DC-AC inverter. In addition, present solar panel support structures comprise a plurality of solar panels that are electrically connected to one another, and the entire structure is then connected to a centralized, large DC-AC inverter inside the building structure. These solar panel structures cannot be independently monitored. “String” inverters are also currently available that link, or “string”, multiple solar panels to a common inverter. A number of string inverters can be connected together to form the entire array. However, string inverters do not provide monitoring at the solar panel level, have a relatively short life span, and are not available in a modular construction.
Also, present solar panel support structures that are permanently or semi-permanently interconnected are not readily movable as individual units to a different location, such as when a roof must be replaced, end of a contract term, or the like. Also, current solar panel systems cannot be easily reconfigured into a new system, such as reconfiguring a 100 kW array as two 50 kW arrays, or two 100 kW arrays could become one 200 kW array. Present solar panel support structures do not include separate micro-inverters that allow each solar panel or an individual support structure to be separately monitored.
A need exists for solar panel support modules that can be removably connected to one another on a variable surfaced or undulating roof, that can be easily disconnected from an adjacent module and moved to a second location, and that have independent micro-inverters that can be interconnected at will in a second solar panel array system.